The PyCon Blog

PyCon has grown in just about every way possible, and it’s due in part to the generosity of the organizations that pledge their support each year. 2013 is going to be the biggest and best year yet with many new initiatives on tap like the Young Coder event and the recently announced Sponsor Tutorials. We’re up to a few more things you’ll find out about in the coming months, so for now find out what some of our sponsors are up to.LadyCodersLadyCoders is one of several supporters in our OSS/Community Sponsors group, and we’re glad to have them on board this year. The Coders consist of a group of of women who, simply, write code. They’re not a Python specific group, but they support the conference because of the environment it promotes.“From the code of conduct, to PyLadies and PyStars, to the general feeling of welcoming that we always feel when amongst the Python community, this is a mission that we support and of which we are incredibly happy to be a part,” says Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack.The LadyCoders run a very active blog as well as monthly meetups in Seattle, Washington, and occasional seminars. Their next seminar, titled Rocket Propelled Careers, is planned for February 23 in New York, with registration now open at http://ladycoders.com/event-registration/?ee=5. The event, which shares the LadyCoders’ experiences with breaking into the software world, will take place at the offices of 10gen (who also sponsor PyCon!) The seminar runs all day and covers topics such as technical interviews, communication, and participation in open source projectsTo learn more about LadyCoders, check out their site, especially their seminar section. If you’d be interested in attending a seminar in your area, shoot them an email: info@ladycoders.com.dotCloudFounded in 2008, dotCloud came on the platform-as-a-service scene with Python at the heart of their product. They really enjoy the readability of Python’s syntax as well as the availability of mature bindings for many of the libraries they wanted to build on, such as zeromq and messagepack. They’re big fans of gevent for its ability to sustain the workloads they experience.dotCloud was a part of our inaugural Startup Row at PyCon 2011 in Atlanta, which took place shortly after they launched their multilanguage service into beta. Since then, they’ve won several awards from GigaOm, VentureWire, Forbes, and SDTimes.Over time they’ve grown to support 14 languages and databases, but they see over 20% of their active user base built on Python. It’s also their language of choice when it comes to open source tools they build, including ZeroRPC. “In short, we owe our success to the awesome Python community - and PyCon embodies that community,” says Elena Gorman.By March the company hopes to have some great new features ready which will make dotCloud the goto option for first-timers to PaaS solutions, especially when it comes to Python. They’re also building out their web UI to include the features of their popular command line tools. If you’re interested in getting a taste of dotCloud, check out their sandbox and get a free app up and running in seconds.PyCoder’s WeeklyComing up on their first year on the web is Python news curator PyCoder’s Weekly. Every Friday, Mahdi Yusuf and Mike Grouchy share the best of that week’s talk about Python, from new projects, blog posts, available jobs, upcoming events, and anything else that a Python user would want to know. In exchange for an email (they hate spam as much as you do!), they’ll send you the goods.The site is built on Django which serves the dual purpose of making their job as curators much easier, and growing their skills with the framework in a fun project. “That being said, looking through and vetting tons of projects and articles every week keeps us pretty well versed in this fast paced community,” they say of the volume of news being passed on to them.Their involvement in PyCon makes perfect sense. While PyCon has grown to over 2,000 attendees, that’s only a tiny fraction of the total user base of Python, and the PyCoder’s curators hope to share the vibe at the conference with everyone at home.“We hope and strive to make each issue of Pycoder's Weekly of Interest to the Python community regardless of Python experience level,” says Yusuf. Check out the site and sign up to keep in tune with the news of the week.CounsylPython is everywhere at Counsyl. The San Francisco-based medical genomics company uses Python heavily on the backend, with NumPy, SciPy, PyOpenCL, and pandas in their arsenal. Their web experience comes thanks to Django, both for their internal applications and external presence. “We’ve even experimented with using Python on mobile, with Kivy and python-for-android,” exclaims Justine Lam of Counsyl. She continues by stating, “Python’s a great choice for us because it can be used at every level of the codebase.”The team at Counsyl enjoys PyCon for the opportunity to learn from and give back to the community that created the tools that they rely on. They’re obviously heavy into the scientific areas of Python, and with so many of the science types coming out to PyCon each year, it’s a natural fit for them to sponsor and attend the conference.“Also, of course, it’s a great place to meet talented Python developers,” Justine says of the atmosphere. One of those talented developers they met happened to be one of Django’s core developers, who later joined the team at Counsyl.Stop by the Counsyl booth in the expo hall and say hi. They’re a friendly bunch and we’re happy to have them once again on the sponsor list.If you’re interested in joining these fine organizations in support of PyCon 2013, check out our sponsor prospectus and email conference chairman Jesse Noller at jnoller@python.org for more details.